LEWISVILLE — Denton County Transportation Authority officials agreed Thursday to provide shuttle service at North Central Texas College beginning this fall.

DCTA will dedicate a bus to run from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. between southern Denton and northern Lewisville, making stops on the Corinth campus every 30 minutes.

NCTC has agreed to pay about $68,800 per year for the service.

The service contract will be funded by a student transportation fee of $1 per credit hour, up to $12 per semester. NCTC officials approved the fee June 15.

Members of the DCTA board of directors agreed the expansion was a great way to “grow the business,” although Dottie Palumbo, Highland Village’s representative on the board, encouraged them to consider another stop in that city.

“We have NCTC students living in Highland Village,” she said.

The Lewisville-Highland Village stop will be at Interstate 35E and Garden Ridge Boulevard, according to Lee Ann Nutt, NCTC’s vice president for instruction. The Denton stop will be at the Commuter Express terminus, currently in the Cinemark parking lot.

Nutt said there is some talk of moving that stop over to Denton Regional Medical Center, which would make it easier for students to travel between the NCTC and University of North Texas campuses.

“But it’s not a problem if that doesn’t happen right away,” Nutt said.

NCTC officials have not seen the final contract, she said, but she was certain that the two agencies could iron out the last few details in the coming weeks.

“We’ve already advertised the shuttle in our fall bulletin,” Nutt said.

The shuttle, which will be painted with NCTC colors and its telephone number, had always been an alternative to a possible rail stop at the NCTC campus, Nutt said.

A student survey showed that NCTC students would use a shuttle and considered a fee of $8 to $13 per semester to be reasonable, Nutt said.

Corinth voters, like voters in most Denton County cities, rejected membership in DCTA in the 2002 sales tax election that funded the agency. Only Denton, Highland Village and Lewisville voters approved their memberships.

The Corinth City Council called, and then canceled, a second-chance election to join DCTA in 2006.

Yet, in the past year, several Denton County cities have approached DCTA about transportation services, spokeswoman Dee Leggett said.

The board appointed a committee to tackle the host of issues that come with contract-for-services for non-member cities, including a request by Flower Mound for DCTA Access buses and a request by Lake Dallas and Corinth for a rail platform.

DCTA is slated to bring rail service — which will connect to DART in Carrollton — to Denton County by next year.

PEGGY HEINKEL-WOLFE can be reached at 940-566-6881. Her e-mail address is pheinkel-wolfe@dentonrc.com.